The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere :: :: University of Virginia Library

PECCATUM PECCAVIT.

A BARD SONG.

I

Where is thy brother? Heremon, speak!
Heber the son of Milesius, thy sire?
The orphans' wail and the widow's shriek
For ever ring on the air of Eire!
And whose, O whose was the sword, Heremon,
That smote Amergin, thy brother and bard?—
The Fate of thy house or a mocking Demon
Upheaved thy hand o'er his forehead scarr'd!

II

Woe, woe to Eire! That blood of brothers
Wells up from her bosom renewed each year;
'Twas hers the shriek—that desolate Mother's:—
'Twas Eire that wept o'er that first red bier!

The priest has warn'd, and the bard lamented:
But warning and wailing her sons despised;
The head was sage, and the heart half-sainted;
But the sword-hand was evermore unbaptised!

Between the brothers who founded the great Milesian or Gaelic dynasty in Ireland, about B.C. 760, there was strife, as between the brothers who founded Rome nearly at the same date. Heremon and Heber divided Ireland between them. A dispute having arisen between them, a battle was fought at Geashill, in the present King's County, in which Heber fell by his brother's hand. This may be called Ireland's ‘Original Sin,’ the typical fount of many woes. In the second year of his reign Heremon also slew his brother, Amergin, in battle.